TRIGGER WARNING
The following observations have been made with a combined 43 years of experience as a music student and educator.
They also fly in the face of conventional advice for learning guitar…
… With good reason.
Over the past 25 years, it’s gotten so easy to find information online.
And it’s easier than ever to find people who will help you part with your hard-earned cash, for almost…
… Anything.
For better or for worse, YouTube, mobile apps, online courses, and random teachers — equipped with a webcam and a Zoom account — are all willing to offer plenty of advice on how you can improve your guitar playing.
But like we talked about in a previous article, unless you already play guitar at a high level…
It can be hard to tell which teachers, courses, or apps are actually good, and which are full of empty promises.
Today, I’m going to tell you about the #1 way that you can ELIMINATE stress when learning to play guitar.
Plus, we’ll take a look at the two most common ways that people learn guitar… And how they actually create more stress for guitar students.
Let’s get those out of the way first, shall we?
HIGH-STRESS METHOD #1:
The TEchnology Trap
YouTube, Mobile Apps, and Online Courses
Online courses certainly have their appeal.
They tend to be well-organized, it can be easy to find a community of other people learning to play guitar, and the convenience of learning anywhere — even on vacation, if you wanted — is great to have for your busy lifestyle.
For all its pros, though, online learning methods have a number of significant short-comings, the most notable being:
No matter what you choose, online methods can’t give you specific, direct feedback about YOUR guitar playing!
The creators of these courses and videos have NO IDEA who you are, what your playing goals are for guitar, or what your playing abilities are.
The courses are built to be generic. That way, the creator can market to a wide audience, and sell as many subscriptions (or 1-time purchases) as possible.
But once your money is in their bank account — that’s where the support ends.
Of course, they may have a number of raving 5-star reviews on their website…
But they don’t show all the people who bought the program… Tried it… FAILED… And then gave up!
(Of all these options, YouTube is the absolute worst. Unless you know what to look for, you’re unlikely to find something that’s appropriate for YOUR specific guitar playing level).
At the end of the day, you still have to watch the lessons, and try your best on your own to figure out what to do. You have no feedback on whether you’re playing it correctly, or developing subtle bad habits that will wreak havoc on your guitar playing in the future.
Ultimately, you become solely responsible for your success as a guitar player.
All you have to work with is some information which isn’t specific to your unique needs.
The practicing, the discipline, the accountability — is all on you.
HIGH-STRESS METHOD #2:
Guitar Lesson Factories
Private Lessons: Why They're (Usually) A Bad Idea
Ok… This one may ruffle some feathers.
It’s easy enough to find a guitar teacher, especially if you’ve just bought a guitar.
Most guitar shops will have teachers who work on-site (usually in a small “studio” in the back of the building).
How convenient.
But, there’s a catch…
The problem with these store-based guitar lessons is that they are very limited on the kinds of lessons you can take.
You can choose one of two options: a 30-minute private lesson, or a 1-hour private lesson.
The problem with both options is that you have very limited time with your teacher to:
- Walk into the studio and unpack your guitar,
- Tune your guitar,
- Review what you learned the week before,
- Learn something new (if appropriate),
- Play in front of your teacher,
- Get feedback on what you just played,
- Have your teacher make corrections in your playing,
- Play it again to show you’ve understood the instruction,
- Repeat the process to ensure you’re going to practice it correctly,
- Integrate your newly-learned skills with your current playing abilities
- Pack up your guitar and leave.
Best case scenario, you have 2 minutes and 43 seconds per step in a 30-minute lesson!
And that’s assuming your lesson is laser-focused, with NO additional time wasted talking or getting side-tracked.
Even in a 1-hour lesson, your time is very limited!
(Plus, we haven’t even talked about any musicianship or creative skills, which can take even LONGER to explain, understand, and implement in your playing.)
Having taught these kinds of lessons early in my teaching career…
… And having taken years of private lessons as a kid…
I know from experience these lessons often feel rushed, unfinished, and stressful (for both the student, and the teacher)!
Not to mention, just like with the online learning options… YOU are solely responsible for the progress that you make on guitar.
Assuming you do a 1-hour private lesson, you still have
6 DAYS and 23 HOURS
away from your guitar teacher where YOU are responsible for practicing, making sure you practice it correctly, and doing all of it without any feedback or support from your teacher.
As someone who’s been on both sides of the equation as a student and a teacher, I know that the majority of students don’t practice as much as they need to in between lessons.
Which at the end of the day, means that you waste money and time when you go back for your next lesson and haven’t made any progress.
Most students, young and old, get stressed out when they show up to a lesson and haven’t learned the previous week’s material.
It’s a sure-fire way to kill any enjoyment you might get from learning to play guitar.
TIP
Many of the best teachers do not teach out of a “lesson centre” or the back of a guitar store. In fact, high-quality guitar teachers are more likely to teach from a home studio.
Why?
- Guitar teachers with a home studio can optimize their teaching environment to deliver the best quality instruction for their students — and create the best results for their students’ guitar playing.
(They don’t want their students, or themselves, crammed into a tiny “studio” with several instruments and limited space).
- High-quality guitar teachers often make a living from their teaching practice — they don’t teach part-time for extra pocket change. With a home studio they save valuable time every day, which they use to develop better lessons for their students.
- High-quality, certified teachers don’t need an endless supply of students, many of whom are only casually interested in playing guitar. They prefer to focus on students who are committed to achieving their long-term guitar playing goals (their students usually take lessons for a longer period of time because of this).
- The best teachers tend to have higher lesson fees than your average run-of-the-mill guitar teachers. Practically speaking, it doesn’t make sense for them to teach in the same place as other competing teachers (where the other teachers can continually under-cut them on price).
The stress-free approach:
Training programs
Learn To Play Guitar Faster And Easier, Stress-Free.
A lot of people aren’t aware that there’s actually a third approach to learning guitar.
And at first, I wasn’t either!
In fact, my last guitar teacher (who helped me make the most progress in a surprisingly short amount of time) didn’t offer private 1-on-1 lessons.
Instead, he ran what he called “training programs”.
Training Programs allow you to learn guitar faster, easier, and without the stress of learning through private lessons or online.
Training programs offer a number of advantages over online learning methods and private lessons:
- Training programs are playing-focused, allowing you to spend most of your lesson time actually playing guitar in front of your teacher.
- Because of this, your teacher can give you frequent feedback, adjustments, and corrections to your playing. This ensures that everything you play helps you get better at playing guitar.
- Training programs focus on developing guitar playing skills. These skills are the underlying tools that allow you to play the music you want to play — whether that’s your favourite songs, cool guitar solos, or music you’ve written yourself.
(This is much more effective than blindly stumbling through a piece of music, and then being told you “just need more practice”.)
- Training programs reduce practice time by focusing most of the lesson on developing your playing skills. This means you don’t need to stress about finding time to practice outside of your lesson.
For parents, this also means you don’t need to worry about arguing with your child or forcing them to practice!
- Training programs shift accountability from you, to your teacher. Your teacher is significantly more involved in your guitar playing and the entire learning process, which greatly improves the likelihood you will successfully learn to play guitar.
- Training programs work well for all playing levels. Beginning and intermediate guitar players excel the most when they have frequent supervision from an experienced guitar teacher. Training Programs ensure that they have the support they need to make progress quickly, while avoiding common mistakes that most guitar players run into.
- Training programs have very flexible schedules. It is common for training programs to have more than one time slot available throughout the week, meaning that you can pick whichever lesson time fits your schedule best.
- Training Programs give you more time with your teacher, for less money. Often you can spend the same or LESS than you would on a high-quality private lesson, and get much more time with your teacher.
- Training programs are REALLY FUN! The experience of meeting other guitar players just like you, who are also on their own journey of learning to play, creates a wonderful feeling of inclusiveness and support.
TIP
How do you know if a training program is a good fit for you?
In my experience, training programs are a great fit for the majority of people learning to play guitar — beginners, intermediate players, and even professional guitar players.
There are, of course, some exceptions:
- If you have severe, debilitating social anxiety or agoraphobia.
- If you are immunocompromised, and are not able to be around other people without extreme precautions.
- If you insist on doing things the hard way, learning by yourself, making mistake after mistake, and taking years to learn something that could’ve taken a few weeks (or even a few lessons) if you got help from a qualified teacher.
How effective are training classes? Well, let’s put it this way:
After almost 20 years of guitar playing, and over a decade as a guitar teacher, I still visit my old teacher at his home near Chicago, Illinois to attend his training events every year.
And if training programs help guitar players from all over the world, of different styles, genres, and playing abilities (from beginners to advanced players) make significant progress in their guitar playing…
Training programs work wonders for beginning & intermediate guitar players who want to learn to play guitar, and have FUN in the process!
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Article By: Jordon Brosseau
Head Instructor, Forest City Guitar Lessons